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NZ's Wellywood sign gets PM's thumbs down

Tamara McLean, AAP New Zealand Correspondent

A rip-off of Hollywood's iconic sign to be erected in New Zealand's capital is causing such a furore the project may be shelved altogether.

The "Wellywood" sign was supposed to be a quirky, fun, way to promote Wellington's blockbuster Lord of the Rings film successes, but it seems not even the prime minister, the local council or even the Lonely Planet guide like it.

Since Wellington Airport announced a week ago it would go ahead with the 30m long, 8m tall sign that mimics the Hollywood trademark more than 25,000 have joined a Facebook protest page.

Cars with beeping horns blocked up the airport's departures terminal in protest at the move, and it seems most of the city's politicians, comedians, marketing gurus, not to mention residents, have panned the idea as crass and "painfully copycatish".

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New Zealand's prime minister, John Key, has admitted he doesn't like it and the Lonely Planet New Zealand's Melbourne-based commissioning editor Errol Hunt said while he liked aspects of it, it could also been seen as "try-hard".

But the toughest opposition so far has come from the local council which, on Wednesday night, passed a vote 10-4 to order the airport to reconsider its plans.

Councillors claim it's tacky and will damage the city's image as creative and cutting edge.

"Wellington has worked incredibly hard to build a reputation as the nation's political and cultural capital, in particular as a city with a creative edge in the film industry," mayor Celia Wade-Brown told the Dominion Post newspaper.

"The worry with the Wellywood sign is that it could undo much of the good work."

With Hollywood itself out to fight the plans, the project is looking less likely.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which set up a trust to protect the famous Los Angeles sign in 1978, said it thought plans for the sign had been shelved as the airport had not been in touch.

"As a matter of courtesy, we would have expected at a minimum a response from the airport authority as they had promised," the chamber's president Leron Gubler said.

"Otherwise, the lawyers can sort it out, but that seems a shame, particularly in regard to a project that appears to be controversial in Wellington already."

Other cities, including Bowen in Queensland, and Basildon and Hollinwood in the United Kingdom, have their own version of the Hollywood sign.

Mr Gubler said it must be done in such as way as to ensure the chamber's legal rights to the sign were not breached.